


Nothing Blue Can Stay

by deadlifts



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Azure Moon Spoilers, Caretaking, Crying, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21649987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlifts/pseuds/deadlifts
Summary: After Gronder, Felix gets sick.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 16
Kudos: 310





	Nothing Blue Can Stay

“Come on, you know you want to,” Sylvain is saying, smiling, training lance draped across his shoulders. He raises his eyebrows and wiggles his upper body in what Felix thinks is supposed to be an enticing way of cajoling him, but only has the effect of frustrating him. 

This has become an everyday occurrence since they’ve returned from Gronder. Sylvain is suddenly interested in training more often and harder than before, constantly pressuring Felix into sparring with him. Under normal circumstances, Felix would gladly pick up his sword and show Sylvain that for all his prowess on the battlefield, he’s still no match for him. 

But he keeps turning him down, because he knows what this is really about. 

“Please,” Sylvain begs, batting his eyes as Felix imagines he must when trying to capture someone's interest. It’s a practiced charm, and Felix hates to see it directed his way. 

“Fine,” Felix finally relents, if only to prove to Sylvain that he is okay, that everything is normal, that he doesn’t need his sword hand held like he’s some lost child. He’ll beat Sylvain and Sylvain can go back to doing whatever it is he does to pass the time — find some woman or elucidate the terrible nature of war. Then he can leave Felix in peace. 

Somehow, it doesn’t work out that way — but why should that be surprising, when nothing seems to work out the way it should, when his strength is still not enough to move him forward but instead keeps him fighting in place, against the same mistakes that have left him as the last Fraldarius standing? 

Somehow, Felix ends up on his back. 

Sylvain looks down at him, reaches for him, an offer of help. Felix glares at his hand, pushes it away, and moves to get to his feet on his own. But that doesn’t work out either, because he’s suddenly overtaken by the burn of something foreboding. He curls away from Sylvain, tucking into himself, and tries to hold it back, but his body betrays his attempts to keep himself tightly in control. 

He sneezes. 

When he blinks through his recovery and shoves himself off the ground to stand, Sylvain is watching him, something new in his expression, hidden under that teasing smile — something Felix can't stand seeing, so he leaves Sylvain to clean up the training weapons by himself. 

* * *

Felix didn’t cry after it happened. He will not cry now. Crying is a waste of energy that can be directed through his weapon. He will mourn through his sword until this war is over; each dying scream brought forth by his blade will give voice to his loss. He doesn’t need to be dragged down into the past; he will cut into his future until he has no choice but to move on. 

He doesn’t cry, but his body creates tears anyway, threatens to sabotage his cheeks. During instruction, the professor lecturing as though they’ve gone back five years in time, Felix sneezes again. He clenches his teeth and tries to force it back, bury it deep inside, only for it to overwhelm him. In the wake of the outburst, tears gather in his eyes and he has to wipe them away quickly, before they fall, before anyone can see and question. 

Across the table, Sylvain watches him. He tilts his head, asking what Felix refuses to hear. 

Felix looks at the professor. 

* * *

Felix has never been one to talk about how the world isn’t fair, despite the evident apathy that it holds for Faerghus, covering it in frost and draining the land of its already marginal nutrients, laying waste to whole families and punishing those who dare serve the men who try to bring forth prosperity. He accepts that children created in the forge of ice and famine will grow into hardened warriors and put their blade forth in the place of words. He does not think about the what-ifs of Adrestia or the mild allure of the Alliance. 

But when he wakes up in the morning with a sluggish mind and an ache within his muscles — when he tries to yawn and coughs instead, a sleight of hand that claws at his throat — the thought enters his mind: this isn’t fair. 

It isn’t fair that though he has braced himself against all outward displays of grief, his body forces him into a mockery of mourning. He can’t take a breath without sniffling like a weeping child; he can’t face the world without a welling of tears; he can’t breathe without a hitching catch that threatens to spill over into something more. 

He can only hope that the world offers him a minor reprieve and turns a blind eye to him for the day. 

But the world is unrelenting. 

Annette finds him in the dining hall, poking at his food because he can’t stomach the idea of eating, but forcing himself to go through the motions with a stubborn refusal to give into the alternative. She asks him if he’s okay, and that too is unfair; Annette is the one person that he will not allow to carry his cruelty. He answers _yes, fine_ and tries to keep his tone free of the irritation he wears like armor. Annette passes him a handkerchief — a hurried gesture, because she somehow understands — and tells him to feel better. 

Dimitri finds him at the training grounds, an apology on his lips and awareness in his eye, but he doesn’t really _see_ — he can’t identity the nature of Felix’s suffering, even though he has tried to cast away the boar in favor of reawakening as a man — and so Felix leaves to conceal his weakness. He sniffles the whole way back to the dormitory and holds his breath to fight his lungs. 

Mercedes knocks on his door and offers him tea mixed with something to lessen his burden. He can’t accept it right away because yet again, he has to relinquish his diminishing control to a sneeze. He pulls back and shuts the door to hide how it wracks his body and drains him of what little strength he’s managed to maintain. When he sniffs and greets her a second time, blearily accepting the tea, Mercedes smiles and says, “It’s okay to let it out,” so Felix shuts the door on her again. 

Then he’s in his bed, alone, ready to shut out the world, but his thoughts, loosened by fever, get away from him. He tries to fight against it, but they pull him into old memories: himself, a sick child, tucked into bed, and the cool hand of his father against his forehead; Glenn snuggled beside him so he won’t be alone when the fever-dreams come; the taste of an awful potion, masked by soothing words. 

Sylvain enters without knocking to see Felix sniffling into the handkerchief Annette gave him, blinking back tears because the world is unfair and his body has lost a battle with itself. 

“I’m not crying,” Felix tells him, defensive, desperate. He tries to wipe the tears but they _keep coming_ and he keeps sniffling and he’s too tired to pick up his damn sword to beat this away. 

“I know,” Sylvain replies, sitting on the bed next to him. He reaches out to Felix, touches his face, smooths back his hair. 

Felix says, “Don’t,” but the word comes out hoarse and wrong, and his chest seizes with something that isn’t a cough, not really, not anymore. 

Sylvain hums, low and soft, and then lies next to Felix even though Felix knows that he looks disgusting and weak, that his face is marred by everything he’s tried to shove away, that it’s all leaking through. “I need a place to hide for a few,” he says: _I’m here for me, not you_ , a lie coated in honey, meant to go down easy. 

“Go bother Ingrid,” Felix rasps back, but he doesn’t push Sylvain away. He doesn’t turn over. 

“Fine,” Sylvain says, but he reaches for Felix again, rests his hand against his forehead. 

Felix closes his eyes. 

Later, when Felix dreams of grotesque reimaginings of the only deaths afforded to the Fraldarius line, Sylvain shakes him awake, gentle, present, real. 

“You’re hogging all the blankets,” he claims, even though he has plenty. Even though he hasn’t been sleeping. 

“It’s my bed,” Felix says back (and sniffles and tears up all over again, because he can’t stop, because this illness will not leave him alone, because suffering is the true Fraldarius inheritance). 

“Guess I have no choice,” Sylvain replies, and he shifts closer, takes Felix into his arms. 

“Get off me,” Felix tells him, but his words are weak. His body is weak, too, because he finds himself leaning his forehead against Sylvain’s shoulder and closing his eyes. 

“Okay,” Sylvain says, pulling him closer, holding him tight. 

They won’t talk about it later — the way Felix’s body tenses and shakes, the way he stains Sylvain’s shirt with the evidence of his failings. They won’t talk about the half-broken question that Felix whispers over and over again, until his voice has left him. They won't discuss the murmurs, the careful reassurances, the way Sylvain rubs his back. They’ll wake up and return to life as it was, as though none of this happened, as though Felix has always been whole. 

But when he awakens again and Sylvain is still there, Felix finds his chest is lighter. 

When he faces the morning, his eyes stay dry.


End file.
